Active rigs: 182
RBN Energy:
the fourth in a series on the economics of an oil and gas well. This article gets into NPV which is seen in almost every oil and gas corporate presentation.
WSJ Links
A banned and best-selling author. Ellen Hopkins writes in verse about issues like teen pregnancy and drug abuse. Teen readers can't get enough.
US set to pass Russia in liquid fuels. The U.S. is set to pass Russia in the production of liquid fuels such as
crude and ethanol this quarter, a top energy watchdog said.
I thought we were through with this under this administration. Guess not: US in new push to find undocumented workers. Department of Homeland Security has notified about 1,000 businesses
across the country they must submit employment documents in a fresh
crackdown on employers suspected of hiring illegal immigrants.
If nuclear disaster strikes, steer clear of Japan's playbook.
Tokyo's slow response to Fukushima is challenging the nuclear industry's credibility.
Wow -- this is huge: states face decision day on saving trains. A
number of states must decide whether to drop expensive Amtrak routes or pay for them after federal subsidies end Oct. 1, a defining moment
for a mode of transportation that shaped the U.S. This only affects Amtrak's shorter routes outside the Northeast Corridor -- those under 750 miles. It does not appear to affect long-haul Amtrak, but there are some confusing aspects of the program not adequately explained in the article.
Another wow! DC mayor vetoes "living wage" bill. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray vetoed a bill that would force Wal-Mart
and other large retailers to pay their employees a 'living wage' of at
least $12.50 an hour. Wal-Mart had told the mayor they would leave the city rather than pay the wage.
California moves to scrap "no child left behind" testing. California lawmakers approved a bill that would scrap the state's
current student-testing program, despite an Obama administration threat
to pull federal dollars from the state. If the Obama administration does not pull Federal funding, look for other states to follow suit, probably all across the south, starting with Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
And yet another wow! EU factory output dives. Output from factories in the euro zone fell to the
lowest level in more
than three years, raising new questions about the bloc's ability to keep
a modest economic recovery alive. Not one mention of the high cost of energy due to the high cost of "going green" was mentioned. Look for more articles coming out of the EU over the next year talking about the need to go back to coal.
Op-ed: Obama is lost in the Mideast bazaar.
The survival of the Syrian regime was a "red line" for the Russian
ruler—a true red line. The dictatorship in Damascus had been forged four
decades ago, when Soviet power was on the rise. Syrian armies and
factories, the intelligence services and the architecture, were all in
the Soviet mold. The sun may have set on the old Soviet empire, but on
the shores of the Mediterranean, with a derelict naval base in Tartus
waiting to be revived, Syria offered Russia the consolation that it
could still play the game of the great powers. In the Syrian mirror, Mr.
Putin sees a version of his own battle with Chechen insurgents.
Now it is dusk, and the hapless Barack Obama
has lost his old swagger. He had feigned intimacy with "the East," he
had thought that he was at ease with that big Islamic world. Instead, he
was befuddled by what awaited him, and now he finds himself at the
mercy of a Russian skilled in the ruses of the bazaar.
Grant the Russians the consistency of their position on Syria. From
the outset of the civil war two years ago, Moscow insisted that it would
not stand idly by and accept a repetition of what had happened in
Libya. The deranged Moammar Gadhafi was a man the Russians knew and
favored. By their lights, they had let him down when they let slip
through the cracks of the U.N. machinery a proposal that called for the
protection of Libyan civilians. The proposal gave NATO the warrant that
led to the destruction of the Libyan dictatorship.
No such ambiguity this time around.
Russia was determined to see its client regime in Damascus to victory.
If Soviet decay and American resolve had all but banished Moscow's
influence from Middle Eastern lands, Vladimir Putin was eager for a
Russian return—all the more so if the restoration came on the cheap.
New York Times
Boehner seeks Democrats' help in averting a government shutdown.
Listing demands, Assad uses crisis to his advantage. The US is now negotiating Syria. LOL.
Voyager 1, launched back in 1977, is exiting the Solar System.
By today’s standards, the spacecraft’s technology is laughable: it
carries an 8-track tape recorder and computers with one-240,000th the
memory of a low-end iPhone. When it left Earth 36 years ago, it was
designed as a four-year mission to Saturn, and everything after that was
gravy.
But Voyager 1 has become — thrillingly — the Little Spacecraft That
Could. On Thursday, scientists declared that it had become the first
probe to exit the solar system, a breathtaking achievement that NASA
could only fantasize about back when Voyager was launched in 1977, the
same year “Star Wars” was released.
“I don’t know if it’s in the same league as landing on the moon, but
it’s right up there — ‘Star Trek’ stuff, for sure,” said Donald A.
Gurnett, a physics professor at the University of Iowa and the co-author
of a paper published Thursday
in the journal Science about Voyager’s feat. “I mean, consider the
distance. It’s hard even for scientists to comprehend.”
In its heyday, Voyager 1 pumped out never-before-seen images of Jupiter and Saturn. But it stopped sending home pictures in 1990,
to conserve energy and because there was no longer much to see. A
companion spacecraft, Voyager 2, also launched in 1977, has stopped
sending back images as well. Voyager 2 is moving in a different
direction but is also expected to exit the solar system.
To keep the project funded, I assume NASA will use Voyager 1 to look for signs of "universal warming."
LA Times
Kerry, Russian counterpart, upbeat on Syria. Rope-a-dope.
First world problem:
vegans want Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes, too.
If there ever were an actual, bona fide first world food problem, this would be it.
In the petition, Caldwell
asks Starbucks to please make a vegan Pumpkin Spice Latte. He explains
that he and his girlfriend visit their local Starbucks up to four times a
week and that many of the drinks can be made vegan, but not the Pumpkin
Spice Latte.
The Starbucks website lists the latte ingredients as: "Signature
espresso blended with the unmistakable spices of fall -- cinnamon,
nutmeg and clove -- smooth with steamed milk, topped with delectably
sweetened whipped cream and pumpkin pie spices."
"There is currently no vegan option for this drink mix, which is a total bummer," wrote Caldwell in bold.
Caldwell needs to get a life. He/she could start by visiting the refugee camps on the Lebanon border.
The Drudge Report
Obama will choose another Harvard male to replace Ben. Having just re-read Bernard Lewis'
What Went Wrong, this was predictable.
Reuters is reporting that Ms Yellin will not be selected.